VoxEU.org, a policy portal set up by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, in conjunction with a consortium of national sites, today launches the Global Crisis Debate. The aim is "to broaden the discussion into a truly global debate, and to make the Global Crisis Debate the dominant intellectual forum on the crisis."

"The ambition is to broaden the discussion into a truly global debate;
the crisis debate has, to date, been largely dominated by a narrow range of economists from a fairly limited set of nations. The Global Crisis Debate will allow economists from around the world to share their analysis, views, and perspectives via the 'Commentary' feature."

This is where it gets sticky. There are filters to avoid what they call 'comment clutter' typically seen on fully open forums. Only professional economists can post Commentaries, and they must include their real name and professional affiliation in each Commentary.

By restricting comment to qualified economists, this project is setting itself up for failure. Many of our members, for instance, have for many years been involved in economics one way and another: in government and industry and media, and within the context of campaigning. We have an excellent record of forecasting and analysis, often better than that produced by economic authorities. There are many others likewise, yet by VOX's criteria we would not be able to participate in the discussion.

Mainstream economics theory is deficient and this in itself would be enough to account for the persistent inability to deal with problems which then become chronic and intractable. As we keep saying, the key deficiency in the theory lies in the way that the behaviour of land in the economy is modelled, it being usually regarded as a subset of capital. Every other mistake follows inevitably.

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